Giveaway is closed. Congratulations to Darla Catalano from Lancaster, PA! Stay tuned for more craft giveaways.
I don’t care what the Borg said (for all of your Star Trek fans), resist is not futile. In fact it’s fun and quite easy!
While working on my review of Art Cloth by Jane Dunnewold, I played with one of her resist techniques. But before I show you that, let me tell you about this book and my giveaway!
Art Cloth
If you have ever wanted to create some beautiful fabric, this is just the information you need. Jane Dunnewold walks you through the steps to creating some absolutely to-die-for art cloth. Her chapters include Adding color with dyes and textile paints, Discharge Methods, Making Tools: Stamps and Stencils, Water Based Resists, Screenprinting, and Foiling and Leafing.
In each chapter she provides a supply list, and step-by-step instructions with color photos. At the end of the chapter she lists questions and answers that could help the reader troubleshoot any problems with the techniques. Looking at the back of the chapter on water-based resists, a couple of her troubleshooting Q & A included Did you allow the resist to dry completely? Removing resist too early can compromise color, pattern, or both and Was fabric with a soy-wax resist immersed in a hot dyebath too soon, melting the wax? Cool the dyebath slightly before adding the cloth. The book is like having her standing right next to you as you try these different methods.
It is evident that Ms Dunnewold is enthusiastic and passionate about her craft. She says, “You hold in your hands my best shot at sharing reliable processes with you…Art cloth can be anything, but a great place to start is with the layering process. Perhaps as you add layers to your cloth, you’ll peel back a few about yourself. There is a rich opportunity to discover yourself through making.”
So before I tell you about the giveaway, let me show you one of the techniques I learned from this book. It’s using water-soluble glue as a resist with textile paints.
Water-Soluble Glue and Textile Paints
Before you start, you need to make a padded base to work on. I covered a piece of plywood with two layers of felt. Then to keep the felt clean, I slipped an old pillowcase over it. Now I had my work surface that I’ll be able to use over and over because I know there will be more resist in my future!
Now to the fabric. She says you can experiment with a variety of fabrics but I used my 100% cotton muslin I had in my stash.
1. Wash and dry the fabric.
2. Pin it to the padded work base.
3. This is where the fun comes in! Apply your glue. It must be water-soluble so I used Elmer’s School Glue. You can stamp or draw or whatever you want to do with this glue. I just drew some lines and circles.
Applying the glue resist
4. Now we need to wait until it dries – at least 24 hours. (I hate waiting, but it was worth it!) As she said, the fabric must be dry to touch.
5. After it is dry, apply your textile paints. I used some cheap ones I’ve had around the house.
Apply textile paints over the glue
6. Heat set the paint. I did this by placing a piece of parchment paper over the right side of the fabric (to protect the iron) and ironed.
7. Wash the fabric in cool water in the washing machine. It took two cycles to get most of the glue out. I ended up rubbing the rest off.
And this is what I ended up with. Drum roll….
Glue Resist Fabric
Pretty neat. Jane goes on to say you can now add more resist and add more coloring. I’m not ready to mess up this masterpiece just yet. Now, I’ve been thinking about all of the different things I can try with this technique – stamping, stenciling, writing – and on and on. Also, it would be fun to experiment with different fabric.
I like this because it’s easy and again I’m using stuff I already have around the house. Another great project with kids except for the glue waiting!
This was just one of the techniques in the resist chapter. It’s a great book if you want to really learn how to make art cloth.
Now for the giveaway, this giveaway is open to US readers only. To enter all you need to do is comment on this post and be sure you leave your email address for me to contact you. Winner will be drawn by random.org. The deadline to enter is Thursday, August 19 at 8 am Central Standard Time. If you don’t win, you can purchase this book Here. This is another wonderful craft book from Interweave Press. Good Luck!
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are 100% my own. I was under no obligation to offer a positive review and received no monetary compensation. The giveaway prize being offered is the review copy I received.
Neat Giveaway…I have her first book Complex Cloth and it is excellent!
What a wonderful give-away! This sounds like a great addition to any artists collection, and I would love to be entered into the drawing! The resist technique is very cool- TFS!
Great technique – I would love this book for my collection – thanks so much for the contest!
That looks like fun!
I had the pleasure of taking a class from Jane Dunnewold
several years ago. She is a great teacher and very knowledged in her field. If this book is as good as Complex Cloth it has to be a winner.
Thanks for the contest, someone will have a ball trying new techniques.
Wow Loved the technicque…must try it! Thankyou very much and would love to win the book so I can try more!!!!Hugs,Ina
The colors are so vibrant! I love how the areas where the glue was really stayed clear. This came out really well, I’m definitely going to try this out. It seems like a pretty hassle free way to make some fun designs.
What an interesting book, I would love to add it to my collection as I am working in Mixed Media and have just started adding fabic to my works. I love creating my own designs on anything I can find in my house that can be used for Mixed Media because I LOVE TEXTURE!
Please enter me in the give away and thanks for this great website!
I keep thinking that surface design is where I’m headed. Its just that I know nothing about it… yet! I just think that many of my doodles, mandalas, acrylic paintings and drawings would look good as a surface design. Hmmmmm maybe this book will be just the inspiration that I need!
That looks fun and easy. I bet my kids would enjoy this!
Wow, I would *love* to have this book! I’m mostly home bound, a real-life “bubble girl,” for now, but I’m hopeful to be able to be in the environment safely again someday. At the moment, some things that they are doing to heal and strengthen past brain injuries/developmental impairments render me completely vulnerable to the environment–sensory, chemical, allergic, an over-excitable immune system, so I rarely venture out, without equipment that makes me look like a visitor from Mars! The medical problems cause varying intensities of pain, discomfort, and distress, depending upon the ability of my mind to process and smooth it out again. Art and journaling are my sole means of doing this, and general “getting my zen on,” and I love fabric and would like to learn more about playing with it in my art.
Everything I have–journals, notebooks/binders, storage containers, pill bottles, shopping bags, and more are fair game. This gives me something to do with my hands, keep me in the moment, open up creative flow, and make things easier for me to locate, even from across the room! I am keen to try new techniques that can expand what I can do in exploring fabric, as this I can do from my chair, and easily integrated into my totally intuitive “automatic drawing/painting” process.
Please do keep me in mind for this drawing/giveaway. And thank you so much for such a “random act of art kindness”!!
How FUN! I love resist work! This is quite inspiring!
Your resist turned out beautifully! Would love to try it, and the others in the book. Thanks for this post. Nancy
Thank you SO much! I can’t tell you how excited I am to win this book and how much I’m looking forward to trying out the techniques. Yay! Can’t wait to get started!
Darla, You are so welcome. Enjoy! You’ll see it soon in your mailbox.
Your cloth turned out really cool.. Jane is one of my favorite resources.
Kathy, Thanks. I really had fun doing it but still haven’t made anything with all of the fabric!
Just came upon this today.
Loved your tutorial!
This is wonderful! I did a lot of resist dying in the 70s but none since then. Then it was hot wax. Never knew that it was possible to use School Days Elmers Glue!
Glad you found me! I know it was so neat to try this with glue and it worked!